Heat, Heat, Never Beat

I have got to do something about this heat.

See, for all the years that I was sleeping in the frozen tundra, I spent my waking hours fiddling with radiators. Knobs and dials, steam vents and tiny little screws, all the things "people" said would help direct the heat away from where it was actually working and into the Shackleton Base Camp I called my bedroom. Needless to say, it didn't work.

Or at least I thought it didn't.

Now that we have a furnace that actually works, now that we actually have actual heat coming up through all the pipes, it turns out that I was quite successful in my blind attempts. The living room is freezing, and you could grow orchids in the bedroom.

(Which, if I'm understanding things correctly, basically means that for all those years, I was burning oil with all the radiators shut off to ensure that the heat wouldn't come upstairs. No wonder we were spending $500 a month!)

Apparently, in all that fiddling and jigging that I did, I lost a screw off the steam vent on the giant radiator in the back hall -- which is just outside my bedroom door, which I never shut because of Him and Her. So when the heat comes on, which it does these days at 4:30 in the morning and which it soon will at all hours of the night, it makes an intermittent hiss. Goes well with general tropical fug that's in the air, but not exactly how I dream of being woken in the wee hours (which is: not).

So today, this morning, when it woke me up, I showered. I know, gasp, right? Hey, I'm still injured and it takes a while. I haven't been washing myself daily this past week, but I haven't been doing anything, either, so it evens out. Anyway, today I wanted to make sure I would be clean and dressed by the time Johnny was ready for work. I am.

I'm going to drop him off, and then go straight to Blowe's. I'm going to get a shower-curtain rod and a little bitty screw for that little bitty steam vent. Ooh, I have to remember to take another one with me so I know what size to get. Hang on...

Okay, got it. It's very small. I took a picture but it came out all blurry so I'm not bothering to post it. It -- the screw, that is, not the blurry picture -- is about the size of a peppercorn. A largish peppercorn, but still. I hope I can get one like it. I hope I don't lose it on my way. That would be so like me. Wait, hang on...

Okay, I put it in a baggy in my pocket. I think I ought to be able to keep track of it that way for an hour.

Anyway, I hope I'll be able to post my results before noon, but if not then y'all will have to wait. Because I have a dentist's appointment at 12:45. An appointment at which I will find out whether the news is bad-bad, or just regular-old bad.

And I will update you on that this afternoon.

Wish me luck.



Oh PS I do have to take one little moment here to to a happy dance -- and I'm sorry to all of you out there who heat this way -- but heating oil is at three bucks a gallon and still rising. I am not exaggerating when I say that if we had not made the switch, Johnny and I (And Him and Her) would have had to freeze. For once, one time, although it took six months and every last one of my nerves, I think, maybe, we finally won one.

And now I'm off to knock wood, cross fingers, bite tongue, scratch butt, and do every other jinx-defying thing that I can think of. Feel free to add your own...